By Carl Zimmer
New York Times
The anti-parasitic drug ivermectin, which has surged in popularity as an alternative treatment for Covid-19 despite a lack of strong research to back it up, showed no sign of alleviating the disease, according to results of a large clinical trial published this Wednesday.
The study, which compared more than 1,300 people infected with the coronavirus in Brazil who received either ivermectin or a placebo, effectively ruled out the drug as a treatment for Covid, the study’s authors said.
“There’s really no sign of any benefit,” said Dr. David Boulware, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Minnesota.
The researchers shared a summary of these results in August during an online presentation hosted by the National Institutes of Health, but the full data set had not been published until now in The New England Journal of Medicine.
“Now that people can dive into the details and the data, hopefully that will steer the majority of doctors away from ivermectin towards other therapies,” Dr. Boulware said.
For decades, ivermectin has been widely used to treat parasitic infections. Early in the pandemic, when researchers were trying thousands of old drugs against Covid-19, laboratory experiments on cells suggested that ivermectin might block the coronavirus.
At the time, skeptics pointed out that the experiments worked thanks to high concentrations of the drug — far beyond safe levels for people. Nevertheless, some doctors began prescribing ivermectin for Covid-19, despite a warning from the Food and Drug Administration that it was not approved for such use.
Around the world, researchers carried out small clinical trials to see if the drug treated the disease. In December 2020, Andrew Hill, a virologist at the University of Liverpool in England, reviewed the results of 23 trials and concluded that ivermectin appeared to significantly lower the risk of death from Covid-19.
If larger trials confirmed those findings, Dr. Hill said in a presentation at the time, “this really is going to be a transformative treatment.”
Ivermectin’s popularity continued to climb in the pandemic’s second year. The podcaster Joe Rogan promoted it repeatedly on his shows. In a single week in August, U.S. insurance companies spent $2.4 million paying for ivermectin treatments.
But not long after Dr. Hill published his review last summer, reports surfaced that many of the studies he included in the analysis were flawed and, in at least one case, alleged to be fraudulent. Dr. Hill retracted his original study and started a new one, which he published in January.
On their second review, Dr. Hill and his colleagues focused on the studies least likely to be biased. In that stricter survey, ivermectin’s benefit vanished.
Still, even the best studies on ivermectin and Covid were small, with a few hundred volunteers at most. Small studies can be vulnerable to statistical flukes that suggest positive effects where none actually exist. But larger studies on ivermectin were underway at the time, and those promised to be more rigorous...
The results were clear: Taking ivermectin did not reduce a Covid patient’s risk of ending up in the hospital.
The researchers zeroed in on different groups of volunteers to see if they experienced benefits that others didn’t. For example, it might be possible that ivermectin only worked if taken early in an infection. But volunteers who took ivermectin in the first three days after a positive coronavirus test turned out to have worse outcomes than did those in the placebo group.
The anti-parasitic drug ivermectin, which has surged in popularity as an alternative treatment for Covid-19 despite a lack of strong research to back it up, showed no sign of alleviating the disease, according to results of a large clinical trial published this Wednesday.
The study, which compared more than 1,300 people infected with the coronavirus in Brazil who received either ivermectin or a placebo, effectively ruled out the drug as a treatment for Covid, the study’s authors said.
“There’s really no sign of any benefit,” said Dr. David Boulware, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Minnesota.
The researchers shared a summary of these results in August during an online presentation hosted by the National Institutes of Health, but the full data set had not been published until now in The New England Journal of Medicine.
“Now that people can dive into the details and the data, hopefully that will steer the majority of doctors away from ivermectin towards other therapies,” Dr. Boulware said.
For decades, ivermectin has been widely used to treat parasitic infections. Early in the pandemic, when researchers were trying thousands of old drugs against Covid-19, laboratory experiments on cells suggested that ivermectin might block the coronavirus.
At the time, skeptics pointed out that the experiments worked thanks to high concentrations of the drug — far beyond safe levels for people. Nevertheless, some doctors began prescribing ivermectin for Covid-19, despite a warning from the Food and Drug Administration that it was not approved for such use.
Around the world, researchers carried out small clinical trials to see if the drug treated the disease. In December 2020, Andrew Hill, a virologist at the University of Liverpool in England, reviewed the results of 23 trials and concluded that ivermectin appeared to significantly lower the risk of death from Covid-19.
If larger trials confirmed those findings, Dr. Hill said in a presentation at the time, “this really is going to be a transformative treatment.”
Ivermectin’s popularity continued to climb in the pandemic’s second year. The podcaster Joe Rogan promoted it repeatedly on his shows. In a single week in August, U.S. insurance companies spent $2.4 million paying for ivermectin treatments.
But not long after Dr. Hill published his review last summer, reports surfaced that many of the studies he included in the analysis were flawed and, in at least one case, alleged to be fraudulent. Dr. Hill retracted his original study and started a new one, which he published in January.
On their second review, Dr. Hill and his colleagues focused on the studies least likely to be biased. In that stricter survey, ivermectin’s benefit vanished.
Still, even the best studies on ivermectin and Covid were small, with a few hundred volunteers at most. Small studies can be vulnerable to statistical flukes that suggest positive effects where none actually exist. But larger studies on ivermectin were underway at the time, and those promised to be more rigorous...
The results were clear: Taking ivermectin did not reduce a Covid patient’s risk of ending up in the hospital.
The researchers zeroed in on different groups of volunteers to see if they experienced benefits that others didn’t. For example, it might be possible that ivermectin only worked if taken early in an infection. But volunteers who took ivermectin in the first three days after a positive coronavirus test turned out to have worse outcomes than did those in the placebo group.
Related: (A Pennsylvania doctor accused of prescribing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19, two drugs that regulators have called not safe for treating the disease, was fired this week, a regional health system said.
The doctor, Edith Behr, who worked for Tower Health, was accused of writing prescriptions for the drugs, which are are not approved for the prevention of treatment for the prevention or treatmetn of Covid, the company said. The health system said it became aware of the allegations against Dr. Behr on Wednesday.
“We investigated the matter and, as a result, Dr. Behr’s employment with Tower Health Medical Group has been terminated effective immediately,” the health system said in a statement on Friday.
12 comments:
Missing from article was that majority of the dead now are fully vaccinated. We still hope to vote out the fascists in the mid terms.
He's backkkkkk
Yes, it is all a matter of opinion and how you manipulate and conduct the test to get the results you want. Yes I said they get the results they want and that’s how the medical world in the USA works. Get used to it
Didn't those people wanted to use rabies medicines for the people with covid. Just asking for a friend.
Patients demand your money back from this snake oil salesman!
He used to be trumputo's medical healer, a medicine man, also called indio baboso or brujo, member of an indigenous society of meskins, who is knowledgeable about the magical and chemical potencies of various substances (drugs) and skilled in the rituals through which they are administered (cigarettes, other drug paraphernalia)), and like singing, "mary had a little lamb" and other medleys.
Eder is a money hungry . I don’t understand why his wife was arrested at target
Whatever works..
Just trying to feed the Petunia.
SWK MAFIA, Vato runs SWK with a select few others same set up at IES (ring a bell)? Grants for funding with basket loads of cash!
Current/former employees create LLCs to service shelters lots of fraudsters!
@10:50 p.m.
Maybe because if she does not get caught they will have more money in their bank account. There is a reason why we call these people "sin verguenza" because they don't have shame.
This is why he is not a Doctor, he works under a doctor's license. He could not even pass the doctors board exam. Or get accepted into medical school. He is money hungry like all the public servant who hold a seat in Brownsville , and Cameron County.
And they mayor brought him here el pinche coco enano!
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